Dodgers top 10 moments

The Dodgers finished the 2013 regular season with 92 wins, which seems like a ton when you consider they won 30 of their first 72 games, and seems like a paltry total when you consider they won 42 of their next 50.

But that's the nature of baseball and its lengthy 162-game season.

And the vacillating nature of the Dodgers' season led to a lot of memorable moments.

Clayton Kershaw went eight strong innings, Hanley Ramirez hit a two-run home run and Jansen closed it out with a two-strikeout save in a win that looked a lot like what a perfectly designed playoff victory might be.

9. Aug. 23: Vin Scully announces he'll return for 2014

With the Red Sox in town and the World Series preview possibilities being bandied about, Scully managed to unintentionally steal the show with the announcement that he would return for a 65th season with the Dodgers.

8. Sept. 9: Juan Uribe's miraculous third home run at Dodger Stadium

In 2011 and 2012, Uribe had a pretty good case for being the least-liked ballplayer in the majors.

But he was surprisingly effective from the get-go in 2013 and his three-homer night completed the turnaround.

7. June 25: Matt Kemp's catch-and-slam to beat the Giants

The 42-8 streak began three days earlier with a dominant Zack Greinke outing in San Diego, but this was when it started to feel real.

Had Kemp, in his first game back from the DL, not caught Marco Scutaro's drive at the wall, the Dodgers would have fallen behind by a run in the ninth. Instead they won right then, and Kemp passionately slammed the center-field wall at Dodger Stadium to celebrate.

6. July 28: Yasiel Puig's homer bests Cincinnati

He knew it was out immediately, and he raised his arms, Steve Finley-style, to show it, flipping his bat and sliding into home to add panache.

The Dodgers had just four prior hits in the game and an L.A.-record 20 strikeouts. Puig's homer broke a scoreless tie.

5. April 1: Clayton Kershaw's opening-day home run

Setting the stage for one of the best pitching seasons in decades, Kershaw threw a four-hit shutout against the rival Giants on opening day.

The difference on the first day of the season was his eighth-inning home run off San Francisco's George Kontos — Kershaw's first big league homer and the first by a pitcher on opening day in a quarter-century.

4. June 3: Puig's game-ending throw on his first day in the majors

The sheer joy on the just-called-up Puig's face as he picked up his sunglasses and sprinted over to Andre Ethier in center field was hard to ignore, and this was the moment from his debut that had people talking.

With the Padres' tying run at first, he went back to the wall to catch a one-out drive, then wheeled around and delivered a strike to first baseman Adrian Gonzalez for the double play.

You knew this would be on here. And many would argue it should be higher.

But the Dodgers were bound to clinch a division title at some point, and it just so happened to come on the road in Arizona. The swimming excursion was, if the Dodgers are to be believed, a spur-of-the-moment choice, not the premeditated mode of embarrassment that many later termed it.

It was certainly entertaining. And A.J. Ellis' tiebreaking homer in the eighth inning that led to it deserves recognition, too.

2. June 6: Puig's grand slam to help beat the Atlanta Braves

This didn't really mean as much as some of the other moments on the list, in that the Dodgers struggled for a couple more weeks after it, but was there a more remarkable thing that happened this season?

Up 1-0 on the Braves in the eighth, Puig came to the plate with the bases loaded as his teammates predicted slams in whispers in the dugout.

He dramatically delivered with an easy opposite-field drive, then raced around the bases and nearly passed Ramirez on his way home.

“I have learned over the years that there comes a rare and precious moment where there is absolutely nothing better than silence, nothing better than to be absolutely speechless to sum up the situation,” Scully said, several seconds later.

The sheer improbability of this moment takes it to the top. At one point in the eighth inning, the Dodgers were down five runs with Tampa Bay on the verge of scoring more.

But the Dodgers won with a feverish one-out comeback in the ninth, helped by a throw from Rodney that missed its mark by more than 5 feet. What should've been an inning-ending double play sending the game into extras instead allowed Gonzalez to come in with the winning run.

“It's the best win so far,” Skip Schumaker said then, and it remained their best win of the season.

Honorable mention:

1. July 24: An odd bounce off the center-field turf in Toronto allows the Dodgers to tie the Blue Jays in the ninth and beat them in extras.
2. Aug. 15: One day after being hospitalized because of a calf issue, Ethier hits a pinch-hit homer to beat the Mets.
3. July 3: Mark Ellis hits a looper into the outfield to score Ethier from second and walk off on the Yankees on a star-studded night at Dodger Stadium.
4. July 20: Ramirez virtually single-handedly leads the Dodgers to a win over Nationals.
5. April 11 and June 11: The Dodgers brawl with the Padres and Diamondbacks, and win both games.